Pushkin's presence in S.A. Yesenin's creative work: a culturological commentary

The object of the article is the archetype of the Moon in the Russian culture. The subject of the article is the variable images of the crescent and full Moon in the Russian poetry. The material of the article is represented by two poems - “The Demons” by A.S. Pushkin and “Through fields of virgin snow I roam” by S.A. Yesenin. The cultural and philosophical analysis focuses on the interrelation of two types of reality, the phenomenal and the noumenal, the rational and the spontaneous in art. Much attention is paid to the problem of transformation of the Moon image in poetry; the Moon’s hypostatic nature is analysed. The author traces the change in depiction of the Moon’s image within a single literary text. The author examines the text describing the blizzard and the demonic myth associated with the Moon’s archetype in the Russian literature. The research methodology represents a holistic ontological hermeneutic analysis of poetic texts by Pushkin and Yesenin aimed at highlighting the cultural potential of the problem of dualism in the Russian national world image, which makes it possible to describe the material from ontological positions and gain an insight into the poetic word. The work results can be of interest to philologists who include literature in the space of the great dialogue of cultures. The findings can also be used in teaching cultural studies and Russian philosophy courses.